Worst case scenario: system not booting (whatsoever)

exiztone

Heya,
Yesterday night I was using my pc, I don't even remember what I was doing exactly but I remember chatting on mIrc, looking at a view webpages, downloaded a n64 rom off kazaa (which I scanned for viruses) and played it. Then I rebooted..... nothing came on, just a black screen so I said, I'll turn the power off and try again. I did that, black screen again, I thought, maybe my monitor is broken but then it occured to me I would have heard the windows bootup soundbyte even if it was.
I rememberd when I built the pc I installed a device that shows the system status with 4 leds. I looked to see what they were and I matched it up to "Initializing Hard Drive Controller: This will initialize IDE drive and controller."
Does anyone know what's wrong here, and even a better question, how on earth do I fix this? I pray to every higher power out there that my sweet sweet comp will be ok

please reply
- Tim

p.s. I'm using my old box now, my monitor is working and it wasn't a graphics card problem because I tried using a different one.

Ruu_Old

try another power unit first of all. If nothing, then remove ur pci cards and try one by one until u get something. Hope it helps

ASTRACLUB

dON'T WORRY

DO U HAVE BOOTABLE DISK? I MEAN EMERGENCY DISK?
IF NOT THEN TRY UR FRIENDS THEY MIGHT HAVE IT OR U CAN MAKE ONE AT SOMEWHERE ELSE...
INSERT THAT AND THEN SWITCH ON...
THIS IS FIRST STEP.
SEE WHAT HAPPEN AND THEN LET ME KNOW FOR SOME SERIOUS OPERATION,,ALSO CHECK IF U CAN GO TO SETTING...

exiztone

Originally posted by Ruu
try another power unit first of all. If nothing, then remove ur pci cards and try one by one until u get something. Hope it helps

Switching my psu would be fairly difficult
I'm just after removing all the ide cables from the hds, cd drives & floppy and still no luck.
Any more suggestions?

Ruu_Old

removing everything, all ur pci cards? did u try that? fire in another hard drive if u have one give that a go

exiztone

Originally posted by Ruu
removing everything, all ur pci cards? did u try that? fire in another hard drive if u have one give that a go

Yah man, the only thing that was left was the ram & video card.
I don't think another hd would make a difference
the bios will boot up to an extent without a hd

Ruu_Old

remove the ram and put it back in, perhaps it got loose someway or is faulty

exiztone

Originally posted by Ruu
remove the ram and put it back in, perhaps it got loose someway or is faulty

Nah man, ram is secured with those plastic handle holder things. If the ram is faulty, removing and putting back in won't really help =/
I don't understand how it could break though seeing I had no physical contact with the machine, it was just a reboot.
Besides, it's 2 sticks, chances are slim of both breaking at the same time.

Ruu_Old

hmm im fresh outta ideas, but i'll keep looking the only thing is maybe ud have to find a way to remove the psu (i know what a pain it can be, ive had a Compaq impossible to remove) and try another one, sorry i couldnt help, what OS u running?

leeroybrown

When your PC Boots there are certain requirements in order to POST (Power On Self Test). A working PSU, motherboard, CPU and memory are the main requirements with graphics card coming next.

You should remove all your PCI/ISA cards (modem, network card, sound card). Also check that your PC's built in speaker is hooked up to the motherboard (the speaker sound check is one of the first things to be checked on POST [hence a single beep on boot with most PC's] and audible codes will be given by the BIOS for particular problems). There may also be POST code LED's on the board

You can also unplug your IDE and Floppy cables from the board (and even unplug from PSU) if you want as the drives are un-necessary for boot.

A minimal system really helps to find problems and if it works add the components one at a time until you find the culprit.

If a component you remove is damaged then the system might work. If not then it gets more annoying.

You've already tried changing your Graphics Card unsucessfully hence eliminating (well 99%) that as a problem so the main 3 culprits are left:

PSU
Motherboard
CPU
Memory

Hooking another PSU up will test problem (1).

IF the PSU works then the Motherboard POST codes can be very useful especially if it's the Mem or CPU. Lack of any response whatsoever from the Motherboard might indicate that it's severely damaged ... but be sure you've got various methods of signalling hooked up right.

BTW, the system won't boot if any one of the memory sticks is damaged.

You can try the mem in another PC if available.

Problems with the PSU or a Modem caused by a power surge would be a first guess considering that most stuff is unlikely to burn out spontaneously.

Best of luck getting it working.

exiztone

Thanks for all your help guys, it's much apreciated.

I'v now tested each ram cart individually and reset the bios (you just take out the battery right?)
The problem still remains

I just don't understand the situation well.
The system was up and running beautifully since October. I didn't misuse it at all, just rebooted like a normally would and a black screen instead.

I think I'll go for the last resort, put it in for real repair. Can anyone tell me somewhere in Dublin that deal with these sort of issues that won't completely wipe out my wallet?
somewhere in-between 100-150 euro in mind.

SouperComputer

I havent really looked fully at the post, so 4give me if someone's already mentioned this.

disconnect and reconect the power from the Mobo, this has somtimes cured this for me, particularly if im overly aggressive restarting with the power switch!

as far as repairs go, 150e? bit much! Im sure any of the guys here would sort it out for you for much less than that!

im assuming your getting SFA from the system BTW.

Its unclear to me if your computer is getting Juice or not.

are the Hd's spinning etc etc?

maybe re-seat the CPU too?

just brainstorming here!